


Matters of Efficiency

by mundanecactus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Hate Kissing? Is that a Thing?, Hux is a Nice Glass Window, I am a Mischievous Neighborhood Youngster Yeeting One at the Other, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo is a Baseball, Light Sadism, M/M, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanecactus/pseuds/mundanecactus
Summary: A diplomatic mission goes awry, and General Hux is forced to admit that maybe he doesn't have a protocol for everything...
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 83





	Matters of Efficiency

Hux spends very little time these days onworld. Wars move fast, and with transmissions so unreliable on some of these backwater planets, it makes more sense to stay onboard one of the star destroyers under his command—within milliseconds of any incoming messages, ready to react at a moment’s notice. The practice has changed the way his brain prioritizes things, he’s noticed—blinking lights and the telltale blue of a hologram catch his attention immediately, and the minute fluctuations in lighting and airflow on board the Finalizer give him more data as to the time of day than the cycle of a star ever could.

It also means, however, that he is used to a steady twenty-one degrees celsius, thirty percent humidity. Given that this particular world is hovering more in the range of absolutely fucking freezing, he is not enjoying his time off the ship. Snowflakes drift down from the blue clouds above and catch on the wool of his coat, white specks in a black void, and he almost feels homesick for the starry vistas he’s used to. It’s only been, what—thirty-six hours? It feels more like weeks, with the amount that he’s been subjected to since he disembarked. Troop inspections, city tours, diplomatic meetings. Hux is no stranger to meetings, but he rather prefers the sort where he can rely on intimidation over charisma. He supposes the war will end at some point, and allies will be needed when it does. Charisma makes happier subjects than intimidation. But it’s exhausting all the same, to hide every sneer and snipe and instead simper at the feet of some barbaric chieftain, simply because said chieftain’s land happens to sit on an enormous deposit of valuable ore. Doable—playing the part is one of Hux’s oldest defense mechanisms—but tiring. He’d hoped when he’d become a general that he’d left having to pretend behind.

And now, out here in the cold and snow, standing at attention for the benefit of his guards, Hux has to pretend that he’s not irritated with Ren before the man even arrives. He’s four minutes late—an unforgivable offense, even if Hux weren’t freezing. And he’s not answering his messages either, despite the fact that he ought to be on a transport with a company of troopers, being driven by said troopers, which means that he’s perfectly capable of doing so. Hux refreshes his datapad once more, finds nothing more than his own polite check-in, and shoves it back into his pocket, pursing his lips. Whatever excuse Ren has, it had better be good.  
A hollow rumble reaches his ears, and for a moment he frowns—that’s the sound of blaster fire on the hull of a ship. But there’s no ship, obviously. Thunder? He looks skyward, sees a few lances of lightning flick between the clouds. Maybe thunder—he’s aware of the phenomenon, though he’s never experienced it in person. He hesitates a moment longer, straining his ears to catch another sample of the sound, and finds something else instead—a high-pitched whine. It grows in volume as he listens, resolves itself into the sound of an engine, and then is obscured by another rumble—this time, much louder. Much closer. Unmistakeably an explosion.

The troopers around him jerk to attention, and he reaches into his coat, extracting his own pistol and squinting out into the night. Nothing to be seen so far, but that whine is still gaining in volume. Hux levels his pistol out into the night, scans the gaps between the buildings, tries to concoct a strategy. It’s not a space battle; he’s not working with ships and fighters and planet-scale artillery. Nervousness twists his stomach, and his pistol dips, but he steadies his hand and forces himself outside the efficient tracks his mind has built for itself. That archway—shot enough, it could collapse, and provide a barrier. Cover inside that doorway, munitions crates a more dangerous option. The whine is a speeder—he can tell that now, though another explosion thumps through his chest. “Ready,” he barks to the troopers, and they raise their blasters. “On my mark.”

Hux’s reflexes are good in space or on the ground, but the speed at which the speeder enters the courtyard is a little too quick, even for him. Which is probably for the best—Hux had been planning to shoot first, ask questions later—given that the speeder turns out to be carrying one Kylo Ren, now seven minutes late for his appointment with Hux. An explosion rocks the ground, and Hux supposes that the appointment is somewhat moot, but he’s holding onto it just in case he needs to hold it above Ren’s head later. “Stand down,” he tells the troopers, and strides over as Ren tumbles off the speeder and barrels his way. “Well, Ren? What’s going on?”

“Hello to you too,” he growls through that idiotic voice-modulator of his. “We’ve been betrayed. The Olgarins never meant to sign that treaty with us—” Another explosion cut him off—close enough to see the smoke. “That’s another one of your bases going up in flames, General.”

Hux is surprised, but by no means will he show it. “The Olgarins seemed quite ready to make a deal.”

“It’s a trap,” Ren says shortly, and starts moving again. “Come on. We have to get you to somewhere safe.”

Hux grits his teeth—he gives the orders, not Ren—but he goes, shouting to his guard along the way. “Go along to the Delta Base—kill whatever insurgents you find.” The troopers salute, and start to move.

“No—” Ren says sharply. “I can’t be tied down to taking care of you. Stay with him,” he shouts to the troopers, who pause.

“I can take care of myself, thank you very much,” Hux hisses low enough for only Ren to hear. “A guard will make me an obvious target, especially if you decide to go off playing vigilante.” He addresses himself to the troops again. “Delta Base. That’s an order.” The troopers duck their heads, and scurry along.

Ren’s inscrutable with that bucket on his head, but his body language reads irritated and tense as he breaks back into a run, dragging Hux by the arm. His grip is too tight, his stride too long, and Hux is forced to jog unevenly until Ren sees fit to release him. He rubs at his arm, shooting a glare the man’s way, and then lifts his own wrist, reaching for his com. Ren stops short, seizes him by the arm again, and rips the com off his arm, throwing it to the ground and grinding it under his heel. He makes no explanation of his actions; simply starts up running again. Hux takes off after him, half out of necessity and half out of anger. “What the hell, Ren?”

“They’re tracking us by com. Listening to our messages—location too,” Ren says. “That’s how they got my squadron. But once your com stops transmitting the all clear anyway—”

“The fleet will be alerted and send reinforcements, yes,” Hux bites out as they tear down a set of stairs and skid through a narrow alley. “I’m aware of how my own things work, Ren.”

“They’ve taken the airfield. It’ll be half an hour at least before backup gets here.”

“So we’ve got to find somewhere to wait them out,” he summarized.

“You do. I’m going back out to fight.”

Hux slows his pace. “You can’t be serious.”

Ren runs a few meters further, then slows and looks back at Hux. “I am?”

“There are a hundred thousand Olgarins out there,” Hux says, snatching up this opportunity to take the lead. He strides ahead, forcing Ren along behind him. “We, meanwhile, have two hundred seventy five troopers—two sixty three if your squadron is dead. They will be overrun. So will you.”

Ren is quiet for a moment. “So you plan to leave them to die?”

Hux waves a hand as he walks. “If that’s what it takes. But their general—” and here he raises his comless arm— “is out of contact, and no doubt they’ll decide to fall back into the Delta Base, which is the most defensible. If they’re not idiots—” which, for the most part, troopers weren’t, unlike Ren— “they’ll keep themselves alive till we can wipe this cursed place off the face of the planet. And keep ourselves alive is what we had also better do.” He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t bother to look for a reaction from the helmet, but he hears Ren’s boots scuff on the paving stones. And then he finds himself shoved to the ground. Hard.

His first impression after the pain in his temple is that Ren has taken exception to the chain of command—again—but the laser blast that sears over his head changes his mind. There’s a smell of ozone and a tearing sound as Ren ignites that fire hazard he calls a lightsaber, and as Hux draws his pistol and scrambles to his feet, he hears a choked scream. He pivots as he backs into cover, old training taking hold of his movements, and watches as Ren shoves the corpse away from himself, its garments singed around the saber wound. More Olgarins are coming, and Ren lunges at them, hacking a chunk off the leader and plunging the blade into another in the same swing. Ren is acceptably competent, Hux thinks as he squeezes off a shot and nails one of their attackers through the forehead, when he’s focused. Too bad he so rarely is.

Ren keeps slashing, and Hux picks off a fair number of them, but they’re handily outnumbered, and Hux’s instincts warn him that their situation is growing direr by the second. Even Ren can’t keep this up. He sends off another volley, takes half a breath to look around. Doors, doors, means of escape—his gaze alights on a manhole cover, and though his sense of cleanliness revolts at the idea, he knows it’s their best move. He lays down cover fire, makes his way towards Ren. “The sewer,” he shouts, and shoots the Olgarin Ren’s tied up with. It drops in a heap, and Ren looks back. “Down the manhole. Now.”

“I’ve got it,” Ren insists.

“Are you kidding?” Hux drops, starts heaving at the manhole cover himself. “We’re outgunned!”

“You go!”

“Ren, this is nonsense!” Hux shouts. There’s forty, fifty Olgarins coming—he can’t possibly— “Ren, NOW!”

And now seems to be the cue, because that’s when the Olgarin tags Ren in the arm.

It’s a superficial wound, or so it seems to Hux, but Ren falls to a knee. Hux shoots the perpetrator, square in the chest, then lunges back over to Ren and grabs him around the torso. “We’re going.” Ren seems stunned—he doesn’t respond, so Hux lugs him over to the manhole cover. How the hell can any one man be this heavy? He shoves him feet first down the hatch, runs back in, snatches up Ren’s saber, and drops himself down the hole, replacing the manhole cover and managing a hack weld job around the rim with the lightsaber just as the Olgarins close in. They pound on the lid for a bit, but it seems they’re safe. He sighs, and his breath fogs before his face. Still cold.

Ren seems to have managed to land on his feet—a blessing, for him at least, since the tunnel in which they stand is filled about five centimeters high with cloudy water. It doesn’t exactly smell… bad—Hux is unsure of the Olgarin anatomy—but he’s not sure he wants to know what it is. He swings the lightsaber around, trying to get his bearings in the dark. The tunnel stretches on in both directions, no bends. Great.

“Give me my saber back.”

Hux looks back—seems Ren’s recovered himself. He tries to think of a reason to be difficult and not give it back, but nothing springs to mind quickly, so he passes it over. Ren accepts it with a huff, and does the same thing Hux just did. Or at least he tries to, but the instant he tries to get the arm with the blaster wound above shoulder height, he sucks in a mechanical breath and drops it. The curses he utters are a bit muffled by the mask, but Hux gets the gist.

“You know,” he says, unable to resist. “If you’d gone when I’d told you…”

He doesn’t finish the rest—phantom fingers clamp on his throat, and his boots leave the concrete floor. At this point, it barely panics him when Ren does this—it’s lost its novelty at this point. He forces his face to look bored, and chokes out, “Very mature, Ren.”

The mask had been turned his way, but now Ren looks away, and Hux falls to the floor again. “Thank you. Now, as I was saying—we should find somewhere to wait this out until the fleet arrives.”

He starts walking without waiting for a response. Left seems as good a direction as any, and after a moment the red glow of Ren’s saber follows him. They splash along in silence, but Hux can feel the frustration rolling off Ren behind him. It’s a thousand little details—the violence with which his feet are splashing, the tremor in the light from the saber, the pace of his breaths. He’s either furious, or in terrible pain—Hux knows which he’d prefer, but he presumes it’s the former. Wonderful. Half an hour cooped up with Ren and his temper.

The tunnel hooks after a while, and around the corner they encounter a set of stairs that lead to a door inscribed with the label “Control Room.” Hux mounts the stairs carefully, attempting to discern signs of life within. No light under the door, but that could mean anyth—

Ren barges in, heedless of Hux’s careful recon, and yanks him in afterward. Empty—the screens are cracked and dusty, and a lone swivel chair keeps watch over a derelict panel of buttons. Hux huffs in annoyance. “Ren! How about a little caution?”

Ren shuts the door and flicks on the one functional light. His usual impassive facade is splintered; instead of ignoring Hux as usual, he waves his hand at him disdainfully. “The Force, dolt.”

Hux wrinkles his nose. “The Force tell you to stick around and get murdered by five dozen Olgarins?”

He expects that to do it—better to get the inevitable fight over with so Hux can focus on plans without Ren’s angry breathing in the background—but Ren just makes his way back to the chair, drops into it, raises his hands to his head. The mask disengages with a click and a hiss, and he sets it on the console, then inspects the shot wound to his arm. His face is pale, now that Hux can see it, and his bangs are sweat-slicked to his forehead. Hux purses his lips, half-reaches for his datapad as a distraction so he doesn’t feel compelled to watch, then realizes his holopad is dependent on his broken com, and crosses his arms with a sigh. Ren tears a strip off his cloak and wraps it tight around his arm, and then leans back in the chair, running his fingers through his hair. “Drop it, Hux,” he mutters.

“Drop it?” Hux’s head is starting to pound where he hit the pavement. “You started it, Ren.”

Ren glares at him out from under his eyebrows. “Hux, I swear…” He winces, resettles his arm across his body. “I don’t know what you’re trying to gain by picking a fight, but I am not in the mood.”

Hux scoffs, irritated. “You seemed to be five minutes ago.” This is why he hates Ren—he behaves so illogically. Onworld or off, he is impossible to get used to. His moods are random, his decision-making process inscrutable, his communication skills abysmal. And just when Hux thinks he knows what will goad him into a familiar response, something he can set his watch by, Ren decides he’s not in the mood? Hux leans up against the console, glaring daggers at the ceiling before coming back to Ren. “What is it? Avoidable blaster wound giving you trouble?”

It’s petty, he knows it’s petty, but he’s frustrated by the situation and annoyed by Ren. He scowls at Hux, looks away, and there’s a moment where Hux almost thinks he won’t take the bait. “It would have been avoidable, yes…” Ah, yes—there it is. “If you hadn’t distracted me.”

“I was keeping you from getting yourself killed.”

“I don’t need you to keep me from getting killed. I can do that myself.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“If you had just gone with your guard instead of insisting on me—”

“I did not insist on you!” That catches Hux off guard, and he starts to his feet. “You insisted on me! You could have gone off on your little killing spree—I would’ve taken care of myself.”

“With a hacked com on your wrist and a toy pistol.” Ren’s much worse at hiding his emotions without the mask; he looks at Hux with clear disdain. “Indeed.”

Hux raises his chin. “It killed the man who shot you. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Ren laughs—disbelieving, near-genuine. “Hux, I will pay you a thousand credits to shut up before I lose my mind sitting here.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shut. Up.” Ren stands—another one of his favored intimidation tactics, using his height and bulk to tower over people. But Hux isn’t so short himself, and he’s back on his rails—fighting with Ren is just one of the many things he’s streamlined to peak efficiency. He would smirk if he thought it necessary.

“Make me.” Ren’s trying to back him towards a wall, and he lets him do it—ready to play the part, to pretend, to push them both to the brink. It’s almost sport; an exercise in the emotions he so rarely gets to run with. Hux is angry and annoyed and frustrated and vindictively pleased, in a way. Ren thinks he can throw Hux around like a rag doll? Hux can do the same, and with far more precision. He feels concrete on his back, and bares his teeth in a smile. “You hear me, Ren? Why don’t you go ahead and make me shut up.”

And then Ren surprises him—something so desperately illogical that Hux is stunned into silence. Ren grabs him by the coat collar and kisses him, and Hux’s mind nearly sets itself on fire racing around on its tracks, searching for an explanation. What is this? What the hell is he trying to do? What? It—what? It has to be—some new intimidation tactic—something meant to—what, freak him out? Hux realizes he’s halfway to driving the steel toe of his dress boot into Ren’s shin like Ren’s a handsy drunk at a dive bar in the Outer Rim, and he stops himself. No. If—if this is Ren’s insane new tactic—he won’t be caught surprised. He’ll act. He’ll pretend he knows Ren’s plans better than he does. Which is a lie, but it’s all he’s got right now.

Ren’s mouth is hot against his wind-burnt lips, and it’s clear that this is nothing tender. He kisses like he does everything—rough, inefficient, overly emotional. The hand twisted into Hux’s coat wrenches a little harder, and his other takes a handful of Hux’s hair. The twinge of pain is barely anything, but the disruption of Hux’s careful appearance is a slight that cannot go unanswered. He’s more precise about it—ever-so-calculated, lays a hand on Ren’s injured arm, an almost accidental brush of the wound. Ren winces, and Hux takes his lapse as a chance to take the lead—yanks him down by the shirt-front to his level, forces a much more methodical kiss down his throat, twists his own hand into Ren's too-long hair and pulls. It's a power struggle, just like anything else they do, and Hux intends to win, but he also can't pretend he doesn't enjoy the noise of complaint Ren makes at that. Undisciplined, as always. Showing his cards too soon.

His triumphant line of thinking lasts about that long and then is forced to end, because it turns out that Ren doesn't see his own weakness that way. He tightens the hand in Hux's coat, and Hux forces himself to breathe normally, though really all this pulling is making his shirt a little too tight, and then Ren does something deeply irritating. He smirks.

"You're enjoying this."

This close his voice resonates, interfering with the breath in Hux's lungs in some annoying physics-based manner, he's sure, and when he scoffs and pulls back his voice sounds reedy in comparison. "Don't get your hopes up, Ren."

It's a stare-down now, Hux still pinned against the wall by Ren's weight and by that damn smirk of his. "You are," Ren says again. "Has it really never crossed your mind before?"

"Can't say it has, Ren," Hux says shortly. His hand is on Ren's wounded arm still; his fingers twitch tight of their own accord.

Ren winces. "Should've known you would be a sadist," he mutters. "A sadist and a liar. Character flaws, Hux… though useful in our line of work, I suppose."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." He makes no move to disentangle himself, though rationally he knows that's what he should do. End this. "Get off me."

Ren raises an eyebrow. "You get off me."

"You're the one pinning me to a wall, jackass."

He clicks his tongue. "That's what you really want, though. And a good soldier follows orders, or so I've heard. Wouldn't it be nice if all your underlings could read your mind as well as me? Wouldn't even have to give all those orders." He cocks his head. "Maybe not—maybe you get off on all the yelling."

Hux grits his teeth; he'd assumed Ren was speaking metaphorically before. "You'd do well to keep out of my head," he hisses, digging his nails into Ren's arm.  
Ren bares something of a grimace and a smile at him. “I’ll go where I please.” And then he kisses Hux again, the hand on his chest untwisting and splaying out, his mouth venturing to Hux’s jaw, to his throat. Hux suppresses a shiver, uncomfortable, and tightens the hand in Ren’s hair as insurance, ready to pull if Ren tries anything. It’s distracting, though, and not a little ticklish, and his breath catches again against his will. Ren huffs something that sounds infuriatingly like a laugh, and Hux grits his teeth. He’s not enjoying this—he’s really not. Ren is clumsy and heavy-handed, heavy period—that’s why his breath seems to be so short in supply. Not to mention he’s still angry—his heart beating quick, his stomach twisting in knots. “Just keep telling yourself that,” Ren mutters.

“Shut up.”

He grins. “Make me.”

Hux curls his lip, then yanks Ren’s head to the side and does the same that Ren did to him, but with more teeth. Ren hums in response, his hands wandering over Hux’s shoulder and his side, settling at his waist, and Hux feels his face go ever-so-slightly pink. He bites back a noise of frustration, takes a much-needed breath, finds his mouth occupied by Ren’s once more. He’s almost warm now, after the chill of the winter outside, and he hates Ren for it. Force, he hates Ren, with his smug grins and his stupid bucket of a helmet and his bravado. With the way he seems to think he’s getting to Hux, when all it is is irritation and competitiveness and involuntary bodily response. His hips twitch traitorously closer to Ren’s, and he makes up for it by spinning Ren’s back to the wall, pinning him as best he can with an arm barred across his chest and forcing a biting kiss to his throat to quell disagreement.

“This has been nice, General,” Ren says, his tone light. He raises his wrist, checks the chronometer there as Hux tracks the movement, wound spring tight. “But I think we’re coming up on the arrival of our reinforcements. I don’t think there’s much point in my staying on this planet—do you?” Hux shakes his head, suspiciously mute. “So I’ll come back to the Finalizer, then. If you’d like to finish…”

“Ren!”

“Our conversation,” Ren says smoothly. He stands up straight, checks his wound once more, frowns at Hux. “You might want to…” He gestures to his neck.

Hux feels himself finally go properly red, and he turns away quickly to fasten up the collar of his coat. “You had better go to the med-bay. Get that wound checked.”

“Don’t think that’s what you want me to do.”

“Don’t think you have an option,” Hux snaps. “It’s an order, Ren. I didn’t save your ass just to have you die of sepsis.”

Ren shrugs, and puts the helmet back on. “Whatever you say. Seems I’m right, though.”

Hux rolls his eyes—does he even want to know? “What?”

“You do get off on the yelling.” And then he’s out the door, headed back to the surface, and Hux is following, and fighting the intense desire to strangle the man. He doesn’t know if he likes this new order—it feels like he’s lost the battle, somehow. He grits his teeth, follows Ren up a maintenance ladder, emerges to the sound of explosions and gunfire and the sight of a rescuing gunship. Ren’s run off—where to, Hux doesn’t care; he gets on, feels the drop in his stomach as they leave the planet, sighing in relief as they return to familiar artificial gravity and climate control. Back to his domain, and away from all these… unpredictabilities.


End file.
